George Orwell – Photo by Vernon Richards [1945] – Hat-tip: Darcy Moore
APPENDIX II
Orwell’s Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm
21 March 1947 (XIX/3197)
The Ukrainian translation of Animal Farm was intended for Ukrainians living in the camps for Displaced Persons in Germany under British and American administration after World War II. These, as indicated in a letter from the man who organised the translation Ihor Szewczenko, were people who supported the October Revolution. They were determined to defend what had been won, but who had turned against the ‘counter-revolutionary Bonapartism of Stalin’ and the ‘Russian nationalistic exploitation of the Ukrainian people’. They were simple people, peasants and workers, some half-educated, but all of them read eagerly. For these people he asked Orwell to write a special introduction. The English original has been lost and the version introduced here is a recasting back into English of the Ukrainian version. Orwell insisted that he receive no royalties for this edition, nor for other translations intended for those too poor to buy them (e.g. editions in Persian and Telugu). Orwell himself paid the production costs of a Russian-language edition printed on thin paper, which was intended for soldiers and others behind the Iron Curtain.
Gatwick City Times 